“We’re a team!”

The journey home will be a nice one for the Herthaner after they gained three valuable points in Ostwestfalen. After what was a hard game for the boys, they came away with a 2-1 victory, which gives them a little more breathing room in the fight to stay up. “We showed great character today, the players on the pitch and those on the bench all helped us to get the win,” said Niklas Stark after the game. We collected all the post-match reaction.

Niklas Stark: We showed great character today, the players on the pitch and those on the bench all helped us to get the win. It’s already becoming clear that we’re getting closer as a squad. There’s been plenty said and written about us in recent weeks, but we showed every today that we’re a team. Of course it’s normal when you go to a team meeting and the coach says “thank you for everything, but I’m leaving”. It’s not been easy, but we still have a good coaching staff here. We have to put it out of our minds and go out there onto the pitch and just do our jobs. It’s going to be a very telling phase for us to go through as a team. The next few games are incredibly important for our season and everything that goes with it. The game today was intense, I wanted to play the full 90 minutes, sadly I couldn’t. I felt a little twinge in my knee and so I couldn’t really give it my all and didn’t want to risk anything.

Rune Jarstein: It was a difficult game today, as we expected against a team like Paderborn, but we won – that’s the most important thing. We’re trying to get better, step by step, and every point is important. The equaliser was annoying to concede, I don’t know how it happened either. It won’t get any easier next week against Cologne either, we need to have a good training week beforehand and then concentrate on getting all three points once again.

Matheus Cunha: It was a really god debut for me, I’m so happy. The situation in the team is a difficult one at the minute, and it was a difficult game for us to play, which is why it was even more important that we got the win. We have a really strong side with some great players in it, and game by game we’ll try and get out of this scrap we’re in. Everything happens so quickly in football, but the feeling in the dressing room at the moment is a positive one.

Karim Rekik: It was a hard-fought game between the two sides today and it was a topsy-turvy match. It could have gone either way but we’re just happy it went our way in the end. We all know just how weird a week it’s been for everyone here, for the players, the staff. But at the end of the day we’re not interested in that, we‘re interested in moving forward as a team and picking up points with every game we play. We have to keep pushing. The three points today were really important because we only had six points between ourselves and the relegation zone before the game, but now we’ve taken a big step towards staying in this league.